


and a third for George

by brahe



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of George Kirk, Mild spoilers for beyond, jim's birthday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7555231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you’re going to keep me prisoner here, the least you can do is offer me a drink.”<br/>“Stop acting like it’s the end of the world, Jim. It’s just your birthday.”</p><p>Or, three times Leonard’s there on Jim’s birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and a third for George

**Author's Note:**

> So beyond has simultaneously made me immortal and ended my life. It's so good. You must see it.  
> This was inspired by the birthday drinks scene in the beginning and where I think that particular tradition came from

It's their third year at the Academy, and the first time Jim's let Leonard near him on his birthday. Well, _let_ might not be the right term. It's more like Leonard dragged Jim to his dorm and wouldn't let him leave.

  
"If you're going to keep me prisoner here, the least you can do is offer me a drink."

  
"Stop acting like it's the end of the world, Jim. It's just your birthday."

  
"Before it's my birthday, it's the day of my father's death. _Kelvin Day_."

  
Jim nearly spits the name like it's poison in his mouth.

  
"So what?"

  
Leonard passes him a glass and keeps the other in his hand. Jim leans back in the sofa, and if it weren't for the aged, aching look in his eyes, Leonard would say he looked haughty. But his eyes, his eyes always gave him away. James Kirk could never really hide his feelings from Leonard McCoy.

  
"Do you have any idea what it's like to live with a shadow like that?" Jim says, and while it's gentle, Leonard knows the rage behind it. Half of him has the mind to be insulted, because Jim damn well knows the kind of problems Leonard has with his own father. But he thinks about it, tries to imagine was it's like in Jim's shoes, and is man enough to admit he doesn't know.

  
"No, I don't," Leonard conceeds. "I have no idea."

  
"It's like...being trapped in a box and you can't get out. Can't get a moment to yourself, because the walls are made of glass and everyone's trying to see you for what they want you to be."

  
Jim swirls the liquid in his glass, watching it come up and down the sides, before he meets Leonard's eyes. "Most people look at me and see George Kirk. You can see it in their eyes that they're not really looking at you. They're looking at a memory. I saw it in my mom's eyes, and I see it in the admirals' eyes. James Tiberius Kirk is not his own man, only a legacy."

  
Leonard doesn't like the way his tone gets at the end, doesn't like the way it sounds like Jim thinks he has nothing, is worth nothing. He makes a promise to himself, then, that he'd prove Jim's worth to him one day.

  
He's trying to think of what to say when Jim shifts.

  
"Can I have another glass?"

  
Leonard reaches for Jim's glass to refill it, but sees that it's still full of the amber liquid.  
"What d'ya mean, you got a full glass right there."

  
"Another cup, Bones," Jim repeats. Leonard eyes him warily but retrieves a third tumbler from the table anyway. He watches Jim fill it and set it down, staring at the alcohol as if it holds the answers to all his problems.

Leonard knows a little of what that feels like.

  
"Here's to you, George," Jim says, and knocks his glass against the one on the table.

Leonard watches but says nothing, feeling like an intruder in Jim's moment.

  
He files the tradition away and throws back his own drink, too sober to deal with the feelings rolling around his chest.

 

 

 

It's their first year on the _Enterprise_ , the first birthday since the one Jim let him see. Leonard meets him in the captain's quarters, the best alcohol he could find in his hand.

  
Jim doesn't acknowledge him at first, instead keeps his eyes on the stars outside the viewport. Leonard watches the way they reflect in Jim's eyes and thinks for a moment that nothing has ever been so beautiful or so _right_.

  
He sets the bottle of scotch on the table, the glass against glass making a dull ringing sound. And then he sets down the glasses he was carrying; one, two, and three.

  
Jim turns to him, sharp, on the third ring, except his eyes are on the trio of glasses on the table. Leonard pours a little into each glass before he sits, and then those blue, blue eyes finally look up at him.

  
"Three?" he asks, and his voice is scratchy.

  
"Aren't we drinking with your dad tonight?"  
Leonard picks up his glass and waits for Jim to do the same.

  
"George Kirk," he says, and clinks his glass against the one in the center of the table.

Jim's just staring, and for a second Leonard thinks he might have overstepped, might have taken this too far too fast, but then Jim's picking up the other glass and following suit.

  
"To dad," he says, and it lingers in the air like the ghost it is.

  
Before Jim can throw back his drink, Leonard's is holding his in the air between them.

  
"Ah, ah," he says when Jim looks at him in surprise. "Just gonna leave me hanging?"  
It takes a moment, but Jim eventually hits the corner of his glass against Leonard's.

  
"And to Jim Kirk," Leonard says. There's more on the tip of his tongue, a thousand things he's been waiting, wanting to say for years now, but he snaps his jaw shut. Jim's eyes are the kind of glassy that doesn't come with alcohol, and Leonard lets the moment sit, taking a small sip of the scotch.

  
Jim doesn't speak until his glass his empty, and he's spent at least half an hour looking at the liquid in the third glass.  
"Thank you."

  
Leonard says nothing, only watches Jim watch the stars again, thinking of ghosts and shadows and the other things that shape a man.

 

 

It's been thirty years since the _Kelvin_ incident. Leonard isn't surprised to see Jim's started without him, some illegal crap in his glass. He takes the tumbler and replaces it with three, each full of something delightfully vintage he found in Chekov's rooms.

  
It's a practiced tradition enough now that they hit George's glass and then their own. Leonard isn't disappointed in the young helmsman's drink.

  
Jim, for once, is the one who breaks the silence. 

"One more year that he had."

  
Leonard knows this, but he's surprised to hear Jim say it. He hardly speaks on these days.

  
"You know, sometimes I didn't think I'd make it out of there. I doubted I'd make it to twenty five, half the time. George Kirk's son dead in some backwater Iowa town. Wouldn't that be a headline?"

  
There's a satirical kind of nostalgia in Jim's voice. Leonard feels half the need to remind him that he did make it to twenty five, made it all the way to thirty before he kicked the bucket. Not that Leonard let him stay dead for very long.

  
"But now, I'm here. One year older than my dad ever got to be."

  
"You don't have to say it like it's such a crime."

  
Jim looks out the window instead of at Leonard, and Leonard sighs.

  
"Look, Jim. Look at what you've done. You aren't George Kirk's son, you're James Tiberius Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise. You left that shadow behind as soon as you sat in that chair for the first time."

  
Jim watches the alcohol in his glass before he downs the rest of it, meeting Leonard's eyes as he puts the glass back on the table.

  
"If you're right, why do I still feel like I'm carrying his legacy around like a storm that's just behind me?"

  
It's Leonard's turn to watch the amber liquid swirl around his glass for a while as he thinks about Jim, thinks about the years they've known each other and the million things they've been through that no one else has.

  
"Because you can't see it, maybe you won't let yourself see it. You've been so busy trying to be George, you're not quite sure how to be Jim."

  
"It's hard not to get lost," Jim admits. He eyes the glass left full on the table, and for the first time he thinks about downing that one, too.

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm a little unsure what Jim's age is supposed to be, as one thing I read said George was 32 when he died and another said he was 29? So we're going with Jim's turning 30.


End file.
